The Sierra Leone Football Association in collaboration with FIFA has ended a three-day intensive referee refresher training for thirty elite referees at the Caritas Hall, Kingtom in Freetown. Twenty-five male and five female referees selected from different parts of the country participated in the course.
According to the Referees Manager/Head of Security who served as local facilitator during the training, Mohamed Bowen Freeman, the three-day refresher training was aimed at ensuring that Sierra Leonean referees are kept up to the trend of the laws of the game. He called on the experts to continue supporting Sierra Leone by ensuring that it has more courses.
Vice Chairman Referees Committee, Dr. P. K. Moana, however, congratulated all participants especially the female referees who were “brave enough” to thrive fearlessly in a male dominated profession.
He encouraged the referees to “take seriously” all what they have learnt in the training, and further called on the participants and other referees who are not part of the training to “always be professional in performing of their duties as referees.” “Your profession forms an integral part of the quest to develop Sierra Leone Football,” he concluded.
FIFA Regional Development Officer, Jerome Damon from South Africa congratulated all successful participants for the relentless efforts which they put in ensuring that the course was a success. While still on live zoom communication, he pointed out that, “this is the best organized online training we have had this year in the whole of Africa.” He commended the Sierra Football Association for its tremendous efforts in developing referees in Sierra Leone. Jerome furthered that, “with the performance of these referees in the training, I strongly believe that in the next few years to come some of them will be at the AFCON and the World Cup as referees.”
FIFA Technical Instructor Gladys Lengwe from Zambia, while giving her comments via Zoom, said that the participants have shown that Sierra Leone is ready from their performances in the test they took. She however called on them to put efforts on the offside’s law as that what she finds out was somehow difficult for them, but yet some successes had gained during the course.
Mbacke Mademba from Senegal, was the FIFA Fitness Instructor, and FIFA IT Specialist Mansour from Egypt and CAF Fitness Instructor Ibrahim Bristo Kamara from Sierra Leone were all the facilitators in this year’s edition of the annual FIFA MA Course.
After they took the test three out of the thirty participants were outstanding on offside’ Sahr Freeman, Fatmata Bangura and Precious Amara were graded as the best three in terms of performance in the three-day training course. All participants were given certificates of participation.
The SLFA General Secretary, Christopher Kamara, in his statement thanked the facilitators for their “praiseworthy efforts in successfully training 30 referees online amidst the obvious challenges with the internet system in Africa.” Kamara further expressed great delight towards Jerome’s expressly positive impression about the way the webinar was organized. “We are happy that our FIFA facilitators are happy,” the SLFA General Secretary, Christopher Kamara said. He further stated that, “as a Football Federation our dream is to see our referees at the global stages officiating world class matches. We know we are on the right track and we shall continue to support our referees until that dream becomes a reality.”
The training course was mostly through zoom video communication as the foreign FIFA facilitators could not travel to Sierra Leone owing to the Covid-19 global pandemic.
By Desmond Tunde Coker
18/09/2020. ISSUE NO: 7912